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45 Years is Enough!
While the world watched the events in Berlin, another Soviet ally in East-Central Europe suddenly collapsed: On November 9-10, after three-and-a-half decades in power, Bulgarian communist leader Todor Zhivkov was unceremoniously dumped. This poster - a map of the Bulgarian gulag - was circulated by the opposition Union of Democratic Forces during the spring 1990 election….
Vote With Us
A poster distributed by the Polish opposition party Solidarity, urging Poles to vote with them against the Communists in the election on June 4, 1989. Solidarity won the election in a landslide inaugurating the first non-communist government in East Central Europe in more than four….
"...Climb Down and Get to Work!"
In Spring 1990, Czechoslovak artist and cartoonist Vladimir Rencin sends this message that is was time to stop the flag-waving euphoria surrounding the revolution's victory and to get to the hard work of rebuilding the country. The caption reads: "It's high time for you to climb down and get to work! The garden is neglected, the latrine" (actually a Czech word for an open-air refuse pit) "is….
Against Pig-Headedness and Corruption
Poster criticizing the Stasi - the GDR secret police - prior to March 18, 1990 East German election in which voters overwhelmingly backed unification with West Germany. The red letters in the poster "GEGEN STARRSINN UND KORRUPTION" - "AGAINST PID-HEADEDNESS AND CORRUPTION" - spell out the name of the hated secret agency, and the number "18" alludes to the upcoming….
301
A poster distributed by the Alliance of Free Democrats (SZDSZ), a liberal political party founded in 1988 in opposition to the Communist Party in power in Hungary. This poster alludes to the martyrs of the 1956 Soviet invasion to put down the Hungarian revolution. Imre Nagy and his associates who had promoted a "New Course" for socialism were buried in plot "301" of a Budapest cemetary, and….
Wolf Vostell - 9 November 1989
A more abstract image of the night the wall fell appears in this painting by an artist whose work had also appeared on the western side of the wall itself. This painting represented a March 1990 show of Vostell's work in a gallery in East Berlin - formerly a bastion of "socialist realist" art hailing the communist regime.
[description as stated in the guide for Goodbye, Comrade:….
It Must Not Happen Again (2)
One of a set of posters reflecting glasnost-era exposès of the crimes of the Stalin era - including collectivization, purges, and the gulag. The quotation from Pravda (5 April 1988) reads: "The guilt of Stalin, as well as the guilt of those around him, toward the party and people for the mass purges [and] lawlessness [they] committed is huge and unforgivable."
[description….
It Must Not Happen Again (1)
One of a set of posters reflecting glasnost-era exposès of the crimes of the Stalin era - including collectivization, purges, and the gulag. The quotation from Pravda (5 April 1988) reads: "The guilt of Stalin, as well as the guilt of those around him, toward the party and people for the mass purges [and] lawlessness [they] committed is huge and unforgivable."
[description….
For Them We Have Already "Voted"
March 1989 election poster for the nationalist "Sajudis" movement in Lithuania, wryly alluding to the Soviet leaders pictured here - Stalin, Molotov, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev - whose rule had been imposed on the Baltic countries since World War II and ratified through sham elections.
[description as stated in the guide for Goodbye, Comrade: An Exhibition of Images from the….
Comrades - It's Over!
Poster circulated by the anticommunist organization, Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) in the summer 1989 marking the anticipated departure-eviction of the Soviet Red Army troops who had kept Hungary in the Soviet bloc since the end of World War II.
[description as stated in the guide for Goodbye, Comrade: An Exhibition of Images from the Revolutions of ’89 and the Collapse of….
Berlin 9 November 1989
With the regime in disarry, an announcement that travel restrictions would be liberalized led East Germans to rush for the wall; confused guards let them pass, and by nightfall, Berliners from both sides had converged on the hated barrier and begun chipping away. This poster was sold in a (West) Berlin souvenir shop after 1989.
[description as stated in the guide for Goodbye,….
Goodbye, Comrade...
Of all of the East Central European revolutions, only Romania's turned violent. After government security forces killed protesters in the city of Timisoara, violence broke out between the army and the secret police, with the army standing by the protesters. Following a failed speech in the main square of Bucharest on December 21, 1989, Prime Minister Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were hunted….
Tessek Valasztani
This is one of many posters used during the 1990 election posters used by new political parties to differentiate themselves from the Communist Party. Here, voters are asked to "choose" between two different types of kisses. The poster was used by the party Fidesz (Alliance of Young….
Solidarity Election Poster, “High Noon, 4 June 1989”
This is probably the most famous image circulated by Solidarity in the run-up to the June 4 elections. Gary Cooper, the actor who starred in the film “High Noon,” is shown with a Solidarity insignia on his badge and a ballot in hand. In addition to playfully appealing to the popularity of American Westerns—and the popularity of American in general—the “High Noon” theme hammered home….
Solidarity Election Flier, “How to vote for Solidarity in Żoliborz”
The flier above, directed at voters in the town of Żoliborz, illustrates the complexity of the elections held on June 4, 1989. Looking at the sample ballots from left to right, Polish voters faced: 1) a “national list” for the Sejm (Lower House of parliament) made up of leading dignitaries running unopposed; 2) candidates for those seats in the Sejm that were reserved….
Meeting poster for Solidarity rally
This electoral poster invites readers to attend a meeting on May 1, 1989 to discuss the upcoming election. A tentative translation of the poster is: "Solidarity's Struggle. We invite you to a public meeting on the free balloting at Constitution Place on May 1 at 9:00 am." This sort of poster is an interesting artifact of the campaign for the first free election in Poland since the….
Solidarity Election Poster for Graznye Staniszewska
Description/Annotation still required. Please refer to Anastasia Mikheeva’s translation of text:
“Vote for Grazyne Staniszewska, Candidate for Sejm”….
Polish Voting Rights
This campaign poster for the Polish Solidarity movement shows Polish voters what was at stake in the upcoming elections in June 1989. Under the terms of the arrangement negotiated with the Communist party, 35% of the seats in the Lower House of the parliament (Sejm) were to be freely contested. However, voters could also vote "no" on candidates for the other seats and if a candidate….
Let's Go! Support Perestroika!
Mikhail Gorbachev began a parallel program of reform for the Soviet Union: perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost' (openness). His intention, however, was for a state-directed movement that would keep the Communist Party in firm control. In this poster from 1989, it is clear that the people of the Soviet Union had adopted the cause of reform for themselves. The slogan at the bottom of the….
US-Soviet Summit in Washington, DC
In December 1987, President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in Washington, DC. The treaty eliminated both nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic missiles with a range of 300-3,400 miles. This was a major achievement in terms of reducing the military build-up in each of these Cold War superpowers. This Soviet poster from….